


through six

by antagonists



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 07:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9810218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antagonists/pseuds/antagonists
Summary: He remembers the nights Robin has awoken from nightmares, remembers the lofty tales of trials of six different lands (or perhaps the six different worlds). He has seen the demons cowed by Robin’s touch, seen the trembling pass of spirits through quiet, unassuming fingers; it has always been easier just not to question things.





	

**Author's Note:**

> lonqu is gay we've been married for five years

 

On his way south, he sees an odd traveler surrounded by a bandit trio. The wooden chest on his back suggests a trade in herbs and medicine, though the dark embroidered robe is garb he has never seen before. Perhaps another missionary from foreign lands, then. They do not typically last very long in the summers here, particularly in the southernmost islands, unused to the sticky heat and buzz of cicada, the rough salts from warm seas.

 

Lon’qu does not blame them. He much prefers the snows of northern mountains, the clean white of yearlong winter.

 

“I’d like to ask your assistance,” the hooded man shouts, dodging the dull sword swung at his face, then a crude axe swing meant to decapitate. Lon’qu observes first the stranger’s practiced movements, then the novice ways the bandits handle their weapons. He draws his sword. In the afternoon sun, polished steel glints brightly.

 

He leaves the bandits sprawled on the side of the road, pockets empty.

 

“You’re injured,” the strange man says when he resumes his trek to the upcoming village.

 

“I’m not,” Lon’qu says. He would rather travel alone, would rather have just himself to worry over.

 

“You favored your right leg earlier,” the man insists, stepping closer. “Please, sit. I’ll treat your wound as thanks.”

 

“I’m not—” Lon’qu starts again, but breaks off into a wince when the man taps at his left calf with a wooden cane. Not hard enough to cause true pain, but enough to remind him of it. He glares, but sits when the cane presses into his leg again.

 

The man removes his hood, and his hair is a luminous silver in the sunlight before he ducks into shade.

 

“Bite of amemasu,” he says thoughtfully, peering at the swollen marks. “You’re from the north?”

 

Lon’qu does not reply.

 

“I’m Robin,” he continues, digging through the shallow drawers that seem to contain more than physically possible. Six times he stops to collect what he's searching for. Assortments of herbs and other foul-smelling ingredients, tidbits of the rawer side of medicine Lon’qu has only really appreciated from a healthy distance to spare his sensitive nose. “A traveler of sorts. I help with spiritual problems when I can.”

 

They are in the shadows of roadside trees, but he imagines the space Robin is staring at is where Lon’qu’s shadow would be. It has always drawn the attention of monks and the like. A demon he has never been able to cut away.

 

“I see,” Lon’qu offers in response.

 

“You have business in the next village?” Robin asks.

 

“Demon slaying,” Lon’qu says.

 

“Explains your weapon and attire,” the traveler muses. “I was wondering if those talismans were for just for decoration.”

 

He hisses at the stinging salve, clenches his fingers around his sword even tighter. Robin wraps linen around Lon’qu’s leg, close enough that Lon’qu can smell hints of a flowery meadow, of woods after rainfall. The wind rustles through leaves and the trees creak; sounds of a boat swaying over the ocean.

 

“Stop following me,” Lon’qu says crossly when they’ve reached the humble gates. He strides into the village.

 

Still, there are footsteps over his shadow.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Demons that mess with the mind are my least favorite,” Robin sighs once they manage to pry grateful villagers off of them. He has noticed, but does not comment, on how Lon’qu puts as much distance as possible between himself and women. “I also didn’t expect you to be the complaisant type.”

 

“Any demon is my least favorite,” Lon’qu says, cleaning his blade. Spirits oft do not leave stains, but he dislikes the idea of residual miasma festering within the steel of his sword. Even when his reflection is without blemish, he makes it a habit to burnish and sharpen.

 

“Had my memories eaten, see,” says Robin, blithe and guileless, tossing a pebble into the small lake. Bright fish dark away from the following ripples. He turns from the water to face Lon’qu, but the swordsman has already looked away; first, to the striate wood dock swaying beneath him, then to the last gentle scatterings of sunset. The village is a smudge in the distance. “I do not remember many things.”

 

“No herbal remedies to retrieve them?” Lon’qu asks. He is somewhat jealous, perhaps. There are certain bits of his past he would rather forget.

 

“It was so long ago—the demon who took them may not even be alive,” Robin says, and leaves it at that.

 

The lake reminds Lon’qu of the northern bays, where he would often spend nights gazing across the cold waves to watch for breaching of bakekujira. It was common practice for a fishing village, since the appearance of these massive skeletons were harbingers of bad fortune. He’d paid no heed to the call of villagers as they pulled half-empty nets aboard, entranced instead by bizarre birds and their strange calls.

 

He has only seen one, from when he’d been but a boy. It had been a truly terrifying sight, yet he’d sat enthralled as the skies and seas shook with outlandish creatures. He’d fled within the fortnight, his village fallen to ruin. Lon’qu still remembers the cursed faces of those who’d been at sea when the whale had surfaced, half-rotted messes of flesh and stark bone. Skeletons lining the huts, a heart-wrenchingly familiar pendant on an unfamiliar corpse—

 

Unwilling to dwell on these memories, he stands abruptly and hurries off the dock. Robin does not follow him for some time, hair glowing like bared bone amidst a tumultuous sea.

 

 

* * *

 

 

By the sixth village, Lon’qu has grown increasing tired of company.

 

“Do you have nowhere else to go?” he comes to a standstill, staring straight ahead of him before turning. Robin bumps into his chest, having been preoccupied.

 

“Ah,” he says, taking a few steps back. He frowns at Lon’qu’s hard stare. “I can get rid of that demon, you know. The one nesting in your shadow.”

 

“No,” Lon’qu says.

 

It is surprising that Robin can even see his shadow this deep in the forest; sunlight is a but wan mosaic through the thick canopy, and they are mostly guided by the stone steps leading up the mountain. There is an old shrine at the end of the path, if Lon’qu understands the local rumors correctly. He’s been offered a meager reward if he is able to rend the evil spirit residing there.

 

If not, well, there will be no one left for the villagers to offer an apology to.

 

“Surely you can’t rest easily with it around,” Robin presses.

 

“Touch it,” Lon’qu says testily, “and I will run this sword through your heart.”

 

They continue walking in silence, the quiet only shattered by the occasional dry leaf and unsteady stone steps. Upon the first red torii they pass, Lon’qu glimpses an otoroshi. He ignores its presence since it does not leap down to shred him to pieces, and ignores the lowing call of nearby waira. Perhaps the otoroshi had leaned over the slightest bit, ugly face twisting as it considered devouring him and his wrongdoings whole.

 

But he passes through the next four gates without incident, and Robin remains subdued.

 

The last torii before the shrine is the largest, and also the most worn. Its bright red paint has begun to peel, revealing the unimpressive wood beneath. To his left, a woman in white, white robes.

 

“You should not be here,” he says, forcing his voice to steady. His hands are already shaking despite his best efforts to remain calm.

 

The woman laughs with her back turned, a high tinkling noise. “Come closer, boy.”

 

“I will not.”

 

“Closer, boy.”

 

He does not step closer, but the woman turns around all the same. Her face is a blank white slate, save for her horrifying black teeth and tongue. At her terrible laugh, Lon’qu unsheathes his sword and drives it through the demon’s throat, eyes wide and panicked as her featureless face dissolves into chilling mist. It leaves an ebony stain on his steel. Her black smile unearths bad memories.

 

Robin clicks his tongue disapprovingly as Lon’qu drops his sword and sits heavily on the ground. “You didn’t have to kill her.”

 

“I had to,” Lon’qu says, but finds himself momentarily mollified when Robin helps him back onto his feet. He says nothing about the strange ink on Robin’s hand.

 

When they descend the mountain, Robin walks by his side instead.

 

 

* * *

 

 

On one of the nights they share a room in a shoddy, cheap inn, Lon’qu wakes under moonlight to Robin’s anguished whispers.

 

A nightmare, Lon’qu is quick to realize, and remains unsure whether he should wake Robin or leave him to his torturous sleep. He eventually caves and leans closer to shake a sweaty shoulder.

 

He does not expect the violent reaction, barely reacts in time to avoid a jab to the eye.

 

“Robin,” he says sternly, sitting on the traveler’s back while restraining his arms. Although he has seen Robin engage in combat before, he still finds himself taken aback by the force behind Robin’s movements. “It was but a bad dream. Calm down.”

 

He feels the trembling, the latent power that Robin tries desperately to quell under his thighs. After a few more moments, Robin relaxes, just enough so that Lon’qu knows it is safe to let him go. The swordsman shifts, suppresses sudden movements so as not to startle Robin any further.

 

“My apologies. I am fine,” Robin says once he has leveled his breathing. Unsurprisingly, he sounds less cogent than usual, but Lon’qu does not comment on this. He understands that nightmares are nothing if not disorienting, nothing if not harrowing and dreadful. Too often he has woken up from a skeleton’s embrace to the rising sun, feeling betrayed by the peace of the world around him. It has only been the onerous weight of his sword grounding him to reality, but perhaps recently there is something more.

 

Robin fidgets after a few seconds, crawling to his medicine chest and rummaging through its contents. His hands are trembling too much to properly grind the herbs, so Lon’qu reaches over and takes the pestle, prepares the tea over the irori’s small fire. They do not speak until the tea is ready. The drink smells pungent and entirely undrinkable, but Robin sips at it nonetheless. Lon'qu is the one who makes a face, imagining the unpleasant taste.

 

“I dream of where I come from, sometimes,” he says suddenly, gaze as piercing as daylight. “Sometimes of the other areas I’ve traveled to. Many have had dire, unfortunate fates.”

 

Lon’qu thinks back to the sea, the cast of creatures from another world. “I see.”

 

“The demon that follows you around,” Robin hesitates, hazarding a question, “Is it from something similar?”

 

He nods.

 

“You cannot hear it, but it often weeps for you.” Staring down at the steaming tea, Robin purses his lips, expression cruel. He seems to be testing how much he can get away with. “Laments your departure, beckons you back to sea. It has the voice of a woman.”

 

“That’s enough,” Lon’qu says sharply.

 

Robin finishes the tea and lays down once more. Plagued by thoughts, however, Lon’qu cannot do the same.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There are times Robin does not seem very human.

 

At night, when shadows are the darkest, he seems to blend into them. When they vanquish demons together, Robin does so without spells or talismans, merely with the hand marked by six unmoving eyes. He speaks in so many different tongues, none of them what Lon’qu has heard from foreign merchants before.

 

“Are you a demon?” Lon’qu asks one day, when the skies are overcast with deep greys.

 

“If I were,” Robin answers, “you would have tried to kill me long ago.”

 

In the distance, a little boy dances in the rain.

 

“Leave him be,” Robin says, hand over Lon’qu’s sword hilt. He looks up at Lon’qu’s disapproving face and shakes his head. “Simple spirits like him mean us no harm. You do not need to cut him down.”

 

Lon’qu remains tense, but he does not shake off Robin’s hand. As the little boy dances, colorful lanterns appear behind him one by one, six in total, wavering softly as bell chimes would in a summer breeze. A fox’s laughter echoes through the storm.

 

Robin smiles at the eerie performance. It is as through the demons are dancing for him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Days shorten and foliage begins to morph to autumn colors. Whenever Lon’qu ventures through the woods, brittle leaves crackle beneath his feet. The biting chill is more welcoming than the cry of cicada and a relentless heat, he finds, closer to the cold he’s fled from. He treks towards the camp they have made, refilled water skins heavy in hand, when he spots something odd to the west. A dark, dark spot in the middle of gold and red, a circle of death.

 

What must have been a proud, tall stone gate has long since mossed over, swept away by storms and crumbled beneath roots. He kneels upon glimpsing a familiar sigil, one he has seen inked into familiar flesh. There are faded prayers scratched into the wood sheltered by rocks, and he has seen enough of the rusty color to know it is aged blood.

 

 _I’ve always had this mark,_ Robin had said, _it haunts my dreams sometimes. Creates a terrible, terrible beast—and there is so much fire._

 

He peers deeper into the shattered remains and sees bone, sees scripts that seem to crawl with miasma. The remains of a last offering should not bother him so much, but they still do. He has often heard of those who offered worship until they went mad. More bones, still. He steps back, overwhelmed by both dust and mild terror.

 

Shrines are for the dead, for spirits and the gods.

 

Lon’qu is no fool.

 

“You’ve been lying to me,” he says when he’s returned to the dwindling fire. It has shrunk to the size of his cupped hands. The burning wood collapses further. Brittle, brittle charcoal. Robin’s eyes betray nothing—they are like the inky darkness of late nights and solitude. Black, like the broken shrine’s decay.

 

“I have never lied to you, Lon’qu.”

 

“I found a shrine,” Lon’qu says haltingly. “With the same symbol you bear on your hand. Prayers written in blood, offerings of bone.”

 

Robin stares at him, eyes reflecting no light. “So what have you determined?”

 

Lon’qu sits, small dying fire between him and Robin. The flames lap at the darkness, shrouding Robin’s countenance in sweltering heat and fire. He remembers the nights Robin has awoken from nightmares, remembers the lofty tales of trials of six different lands (or perhaps the six different worlds). He has seen the demons cowed by Robin’s touch, seen the trembling pass of spirits through quiet, unassuming fingers; it has always been easier just not to question things.

 

He is not so much frightened as he is ashamed. He has fled from spirits all his life, cut them down, offered no quarter. He has cursed nameless gods, trod through the tranquil of shrines, and yet—

 

“What of the comrades you spoke of?” he asks, staring down at his empty hands. If Robin is not a demon, then he must be a god. He feels unbearably insignificant. “From lands where those risen from the grave waged war?”

 

“That is a war from centuries past,” Robin says carefully, “They are long gone, now.”

 

“And what will become of me?” Lon’qu asks.

 

Robin does not answer this. Instead, he reaches across the fire to cup Lon’qu’s cheek. The swordsman glances down momentarily to see that the fire has been reduced to cooling ember, looks back up to see Robin smiling at him.

 

Lon’qu closes his eyes and bows his head. At the very least, the fingers tracing his lips are warm.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I am going to burn the shrines that I find,” Lon’qu tells Robin. “The ones that bear your mark.”

 

“Do the offerings unnerve you so?” Robin asks, not bothering to hide his hand anymore. Despite all his travels and exposure to sun, he is still so pale beneath the starlight, his hair still so blinding. At times, Lon’qu will wonder how a god could look so plain yet so disturbing. “They’re no longer living—those who’ve worshipped me. I’d almost forgotten about the shrines until you found one.”

 

“You do not have pleasant memories of them,” Lon’qu says. It is half a question. “I will burn the offerings as well.”

 

“You would deny me?” Robin murmurs, reaching towards Lon’qu’s neck to rest his nails on the quickening pulse. Lon'qu feels thrill run down his spine. He swallows.

 

“Never.”

 

The southern seas are warm even in the colder weather. Lon’qu thinks he might see faint outlines of feathery wings from Robin’s shadow, but they disappear when he blinks.

 

The skies are heavy with eyeless birds, and the ocean churns. Robin whispers something and covers Lon’qu’s eyes, covers his mouth.

 

He tastes salt on his lips, tastes a god’s laughter.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> motif of 6 worlds, 6 gates, 6 etc. was inspired by [meido](http://yokai.com/meido/)  
> & the [bakekujira](http://yokai.com/bakekujira/) since i hc lon'qu from w. hokkaido in jp setting
> 
> [ichi is literally ](http://apple-melons.tumblr.com/post/157475716243)|[ trying to friggin ](https://twitter.com/i/moments/850143616865492993)|[ kill me?????](http://apple-melons.tumblr.com/post/160069120478/)


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